Through A Glass Darkly
by Selena
Summary: After the first season finale, Nathan finds himself in the Five Years Goneverse.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Characters and situations owned by NBC.

**Thanks to:** Wychwood, for beta-reading.

**Spoilers:** For the entire first season.

* * *

**Through a glass darkly **

**I. Nathan**

Hiro Nakamura would have been able to understand what was happening; would have been able to explain about the possibility of different timelines touching each other, rifts opening at sensitive points, and the likelihood of Peter Petrelli, exploding with all his different powers, making a last-second effort to get his brother to safety. But all Nathan knew was this: one moment, he was up in the air, feeling something like a massive shockwave coming from Peter; the next, he was… elsewhere. He couldn't narrow it down further when he opened his eyes.

He was standing in the ruins of a building that must have been destroyed very recently; the dust was still in the air. Two men were standing confronting each other, fire and ice surrounding them in eerie halos. One was a stranger with short dark hair, someone Nathan had never seen before. The other was Peter.

Not the Peter he had just held, every bit of skin radiating lethal heat and desperation, but complete trust returned to his eyes. Not the Peter who had been dead just a week earlier, features frozen, eyes blind, still and utterly out of reach. In a way, this one was even less familiar. Not because he looked older, or because of the scar across his face; but because in twenty six years, Nathan had never seen Peter exhibiting the kind of lethal rage this man was currently showing.

He had never seen Peter _hate_.

The stranger spotted Nathan first, blinked in stunned disbelief and nearly got blasted away by Peter before he levitated himself upwards. There wasn't time to process that there was another person who could fly as Peter turned towards him. Nathan experienced another moment of complete disorientation. He opened his mouth to ask what the hell was going on, and found himself sitting in a darkened room before he could draw his next breath. Sitting across from him was Peter, still with that same aged and scarred face, staring at him, the hatred replaced by something as intense but harder to classify.

"It's really you," Peter said. "I had to be sure, that's why I froze time and teleported us out of there. It's really you."

Nathan wondered whether he was dying, dying from the radiation somewhere in the air, and experiencing a series of increasingly bizarre hallucinations. So much for the idea of seeing one's life pass by in a couple of seconds. Not that he had been particularly keen on a Nathan Petrelli retrospective; remaining in the present during those moments of death would have been preferable. He had known that this, at last, was the right thing, the right decision. Closing his eyes, he tried to get back to it: nothing but air around them and the certainty there would be no more deaths to carry. The future not written in stone.

"That never happened," Peter said, and Nathan opened his eyes again.

"It did," he said, concluding without surprise that Peter must be able to read thoughts now. It explained what had happened in the garage earlier in the evening.

It didn't explain anything else. Peter was still sitting across from him, and was looking at him with the same kind of focus.

"You're not dead," Peter said, and reached out with his right hand, then pulled it back. Which was so utterly unlike his brother that Nathan gave up on his last-seconds-of-life-hallucination theory. He'd have imagined it differently.

"Apparently not," he said wryly, and for the first time looked down. He was still wearing the same suit, somehow not burned as if protected by whatever kept his flesh from being stripped of his bones each time he flew at supersonic speed. It was covered with dust that had still been settling among the ruins earlier, though. He raised his hands. No radiation burns, and they should be visible by now.

For a heartbeat, he wasn't relieved as much as disappointed, which was absurd. He might have been ready to die, but that was because all the alternatives had been worse, even if it had taken Claire spelling it out to him to get him admit it to himself. There had been no other choice; it had not been any form of a death wish, Nathan thought, and pushed the memory of his father and his heart attacks away.

"You're definitely still you," Peter commented, and that sounded so much more like the Peter of yesterday that Nathan felt an annoyed kind of relief.

"I thought we'd settled that," he said crisply. "What happened, Peter? And who the hell was that you were fighting with?"

"You really don't remember," Peter said, and Nathan started to feel impatient, which was far better than feeling disturbed. "Or maybe you can't. Maybe…"

When Peter reached out this time, he did put his hands on Nathan's shoulders. His grasp was as strong as it had been on Kirby Plaza.

"But you weren't there at Kirby Plaza," Peter said, apparently continuing to read Nathan's thoughts. "You didn't – I didn't see you again until after. When you got me out of the city and told everyone it had been Sylar. That was still you, wasn't it?"

The suspicion that started to rise in Nathan was as ugly as it was inevitable.

"That didn't happen," he whispered. "You exploded in the sky. Not in the city. I didn't let it happen, Peter, I didn't let you kill…"

_So he lives ... and kills millions of people. How can you let him be responsible for something like that?_ Claire asked in his memory. _And how can you live with yourself if he is?_

I didn't, he protested, but suddenly he couldn't be sure anymore. Maybe _that_ had been the hallucination. Saying goodbye to his mother, flying after Claire, finding Peter and rising to the sky. Wish fulfilment, nothing more, and this the reality, a world where one thing was glaringly obvious: those .07 Linderman had regarded as expendable for the greater good had, indeed, been sacrificed. And Peter, _this_ Peter, scarred and alien, had been made the instrument of their deaths.

"No," Peter said, and his grasp grew even stronger, hard enough to hurt. Nathan didn't move. "No, that doesn't explain – he killed you. He couldn't have stolen your power if he hadn't killed you. He can't do it any other way. Ando, Ando was dead and Ando still showed up here because Hiro brought him. Did Hiro come back and bring you?"

"_You become a ... bad person, Nathan_," Hiro told him, eyes full of sadness and hope, and when Peter caught this memory, he drew back.

"He changed the past," he said, with an echo of the excitement he used to show when insisting on talking about their powers with Nathan, no matter how much Nathan tried not to. Peter got up and started to pace. "After coming here. He talked to you. And you were there, at Kirby Plaza. Different timelines, it has to be. But that means we were screwed no matter how often he went back. We remain in this one. But you. You are here. Nathan, if you are here, then maybe everything can be different again."

Looking at his brother and trying to imagine the kind of world Peter had lived in for who knew how much time, Nathan doubted that. But whatever kind of world it was, he had in some way contributed to creating it.

* * *

Peter filled him in on the most important events, which took a while.

"And nobody noticed I had been replaced by a psychopathic serial killer?" Nathan asked in disbelief, unable to hide a note of wounded vanity beneath the horror, as absurd as it was to feel insulted by such a thing. Peter looked away.

"We didn't talk," he said. "After. I couldn't. I remained as far away from you as possible. I should have known it wasn't you anymore when the laws started changing. I'm sorry, Nathan."

Actually, that part definitely sounded less like being replaced by a psychopathic serial killer and more like what Nathan had always feared would be inevitable if knowledge of their existence ever became public. He hadn't been kidding when he had told Peter's girlfriend Simone that if it were up to him, he would put all of them on an island, as far away from the rest of the country as possible. Peter shook his head, stubborn as ever, and achingly familiar again with that motion.

"No, that wasn't you."

"It could have been," Nathan said. "If you don't want to see that, you should stop reading my thoughts."

"But it wasn't. You died to prevent it – you would have, in your timeline."

No, I would have died to save you from this, Nathan thought, well aware of the difference and the inherent selfishness, but if Peter was still listening, he chose not to acknowledge the thought this time.

Given that Sylar, no matter when, had replaced Nathan and managed to become President of the United States, there was one obvious way to rectify the situation. Which was what Nathan believed until Peter switched on the tv that was in the room he had teleported them to. Breaking news was the image of President Petrelli flying, in public. Complete with the information that this wasn't actually President Petrelli, but the infamous cause of millions of New York deaths, Gabriel Gray, aka Sylar. Sylar, previously believed to have died in the explosion, the news people informed them in excited voices, had succeeded in capturing and replacing the President thanks to his infamous powers for a short time. Thankfully, the President had been freed from captivity by chief of Homeland Security Matthew Parkman and would address the nation from a safe and secret location quite soon. Sylar, however, was at large and presumably still trying to impersonate the President. Security forces had been ordered to shoot on sight. Measures against superpowered people still at large were expected to be increased, considering the most dangerous of them all had just proven that even the United States Government was not safe from their attacks.

"Son of a bitch," Peter said.

"Well, that explains it," Nathan commented. He felt oddly detached; it was safer to see all of this as a puzzle he needed to find a solution for. If he saw it as a reality, if he started to wonder what the man wearing his face had done to his wife and children, who, Peter told him, had been killed in a supposed terrorist attack two years ago, he would have to start his own killing career, right now.

"What?"

"Why he got away with it all this time. He might be insane, but he's far from stupid."

"Sure, nothing would be worse than being replaced by a _stupid _psychopath," Peter said with a grimace and, switching from sarcasm to something that carried the brokenness and longing of a child with it, added: "God, I missed you, Nathan. I missed you so much."

There wasn't anything Nathan could say in reply. If those years hadn't existed for him, they had for Peter. Besides, he wasn't sure he believed in Peter's theory of parallel timelines. Maybe this was still his own future, somehow; a demonstration of ultimate failure. But pondering this was futile right now. What was needed was a plan to survive the immediate future, and then a way to remove that usurper from office. So he silently put his hand on Peter's shoulder. After waiting for some moments, he said:

"Listen, if you aren't already on the Most Wanted list, he'll put you on it now, naming you as Sylar's associate. He'll definitely send people after you and any known friends you have, so we should…"

"They're all dead now," Peter interrupted. "Except for – oh god. He'll go after Niki."

"Niki?"

"That's something else I have to tell you," Peter said, and transported them to a strip club in Vegas. Given the shoot-on-sight order they had just heard on tv and the fact that someone looking like him was the President, Nathan gave it only a few moments before someone recognized him. To his surprise, they were completely ignored.

"We're invisible," Peter whispered, clasping his left wrist. "I can transfer as long as we remain in touch."

Maybe that was why he was still alive, Nathan thought. Maybe that was what Peter, the Peter he had been able to fly away from Kirby Plaza, had done during those last moments; transferred and shared some of those powers whose mere existence still disturbed Nathan's sense of reality on an ongoing basis.

The music was loud enough to cover for any sounds and movements they made as Peter explained to him about Niki while looking for her. Compared with all the other news Nathan had received today, learning that his brother had ended up with the woman he had shared a memorable night with in Las Vegas was actually mildly amusing, until Peter mentioned that her son had died during the explosion. Nathan didn't have time to consider the implications of Peter living with a woman who had lost her child because of him as Peter finally spotted Niki entering the bar. He pulled Nathan towards her. She looked thinner and had lost both the aura of vulnerability and the playful predatory menace she had switched between during the brief time Nathan had spent with her. When Peter touched her shoulder with his free hand, whispering her name, she said harshly: "I told you not to come back."

"They'll be after you, too, Niki," Peter said urgently. "It's Sylar. It never was Nathan. You saw the news, right? It's just the other way around. It's Sylar who is President, and you know he'll never stop until every single one of us is dead. We have to stop him, and we finally can, now."

He let go of Nathan's wrist, just for a second, long enough for Niki to see him before turning Nathan invisible again. She drew in a breath, but her face remained expressionless.

"If we manage to take out Sylar, Nathan can put an end to all the persecution," Peter continued. "But Sylar knows that. He'll bring you in, and if you can't tell him anything, he'll just kill you for your strength. You have to come with us, Niki."

"Sylar didn't kill my son," Niki said. "You did. Both of you. That's what you told me today, wasn't it? You killed him, and _he_ covered for you and made a career out of it. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't report you to Homeland Security right now. Sure, Sylar will kill me. Maybe that's overdue anyway."

"It wasn't…"

"Sylar killed your husband," Nathan interrupted, having remembered the way she and the man who had accompanied her had come to his office and combining it with something Peter had said about Sylar. "He has his power now; he walks through walls. And he'll kill a lot of other people's children before he's done." He thought of what she had told him in Vegas and put all the persuasion a career in law and politics had given him into his voice. "You're still the person your son saw, Niki. Strong and good."

"I'm not two people anymore, Nathan," she returned. "I stopped a long time ago." She turned to Peter. "Is it true what he said about DL?"

"Yes."

She hesitated a moment longer. Then her features hardened. "Fine. I'm coming with you. Maybe you deserve to die, and so do I, but not before that son of a bitch is put in the ground for good."

* * *

Hiro had once told Nathan that he could teleport across continents, but Peter admitted that the battle with Sylar and another fight that had happened earlier had exhausted him; at any rate, he didn't want to risk it with two people. Taking a car would have been the easiest thing to do, except for the part where one of them would need to remain visible in order not to attract attention, and even if it was Niki, it could still get them arrested, at least in Nevada, if Sylar had put Peter and his known associates on the Most Wanted list.

It still wasn't an easy suggestion for him to make, but it was the most sensible solution. "Flight," Nathan said. "Both of us, with Niki in between. You won't even have to keep us invisible, not if we fly fast enough."

It said something about how much everyone in this new world took their powers for granted that the only thing Peter asked was: "Where to?"

Considering they were in Las Vegas, Nathan thought Mexico was the most obvious option, which meant Homeland Security would think so, too. "Canada," he said. "Just across the border, for tonight. Then we'll see."

It was the longest distance he had ever crossed, even counting that desperate attempt to get as high in the atmosphere as possible before Peter exploded. This time, they remained low, under radar level, just in case. There was an odd beauty to it; the horror of thousands of deaths in New York, prison camps for powered people and legislation that created them, all left behind for as long as the flight took, with only the present to focus on; Peter's arms across his shoulders, Niki's firm, athletic body, nothing but air and speed around them.

They landed at a small holiday resort in the Canadian woods where Niki rented a cabin for them. She used the bathroom first, and Nathan watched Peter slump into the closest chair. So different, and yet not; the way he sprawled could have been Peter in the Gramercy house, only yesterday, but the body was that of a man over thirty, more muscular than Peter's had been. Nobody would mistake him for a teenager anymore, not even at a quick glance. His face looked like the years had carved their mark in with a blunt tool, and not just because of the scar. There was a constant tension mixed with weariness there which had not belonged to Peter before, and his eyes were those of a man who had seen the worst and considered himself to be part of it.

"I never asked you," Peter said, watching Nathan watching him. "Well, I didn't in my timeline. What you said about not knowing who you are without me. Did you mean that, or was it just because of the recent resurrection thing?"

So that had happened, too. Again, Nathan wondered whether there really were two different time lines, or whether Sylar had managed to steal the gift of flight from someone else, and this was all the future there ever would be, and all the past; whether Kirby Plaza was nothing but a faked memory. You didn't even need superpowers for that; he knew false memories could be created today… yesterday… if you had the necessary drugs and technique.

"I meant it," he said, voice going monotone. He couldn't afford to think about this. He had to believe that Peter was right, that there was an alternate timeline in which all of this had been prevented.

Monty and Simon were alive in that time. So was Heidi. And…

"What happened to Claire?" Nathan asked abruptly. "Is she…"

"Sylar can heal now," Peter said, his own voice as flat as Nathan's. "Which means she's dead, too."

She wasn't. She had been alive just hours ago, crying, and yet for the first time looking at him with something like belief. She was alive now somewhere, with her family, the one which had taken care of her all those years. But not here. Here she was dead, and somehow, that idea destroyed what detachment Nathan had left concerning the reality of this world. He went to the window and opened it, breathing in the cool night air, not noticing that there were tears in his eyes until he felt Peter's hand on his face.

"We'll kill him," Peter said, with the same self-evident matter-of-factness he used to say "political science sucks, and I'm not taking these classes anymore". "And then you'll make it okay again, Nathan. I know you will."

If Nathan needed more evidence to just how bad things were with Peter, those two sentences would have been more than enough. Niki came out of the bathroom at that moment, and he seized the excuse to avoid a direct reply. After briefly returning Peter's gesture, he went in and stared into the mirror; the hot, damp air made his face barely visible.

He had to fix this somehow. Not the world; not even the country. You couldn't undo years of paranoia and increasingly restrictive legislation with one or two presidential decrees, and that was assuming that they actually managed to somehow get Sylar alone so they could make the switch _and_ that afterwards nobody would have the sense to demand Nathan be checked for the superpowers gene as soon as he changed his policy. Right now, he doubted that the country _could_ be fixed, though clearly something had to be done.

But he had to fix Peter.

And while he was at it, he really had to kill Sylar.

He heard Niki and Peter talking outside, but he couldn't understand more the occasional fragment, and he didn't really try to. After taking a shower, he used one of the bathrobes that had come with the cabin and went back to the living room. While Peter took his turn in the bathroom, Nathan found Niki leaning against the fridge in the small kitchen, watching him.

"Five years," she said. "We spent five years watching you sell us out, and he still thinks you can make it right somehow. And don't say it was Sylar. That's not the point."

"No, it's not," Nathan said, and she sighed. Then she said with a surprising lack of hostility:

"You know, it doesn't really matter whether you actually want to save the world or not. Because even if you fuck it up all over again, he's not going to let you go. You're clear on that, right? If you think that once you've had enough of saving this world, he's going to use that time travel thing he has from Hiro Nakamura to bring you back to the past where you came from, back to that time where everyone is still alive – he's not going to do that. He'll never let you go."


	2. Chapter 2

**II. Niki**

When they were five, shortly after their mother died, Niki and Jessica had run away from home. It had not been much of an adventure; in retrospect, they had been incredibly lucky not to encounter anything more dangerous than smelly homeless people and a disgruntled police officer. But their father had been angry with them, very angry, and the aftermath had ensured they never ran away from home again. Whenever they wanted to, they had hidden in the cupboard instead, too ashamed to go to kindergarten because of the bruises that showed what bad girls they were.

The current situation was an absurd echo of this, thought Niki, because if she didn't focus on the absurdity and on the tired, bitter rage she felt, she would break down and cry, and she was done with crying. She had been for a long time.

Watching Peter watch his brother over the improvised breakfast they had, she was reminded of the first time she had taken a beating alone, after Jessica's death. Of locking herself in the bathroom afterwards and crying for her dead sister to come back and make it stop. She'd blame being eleven, but she had done the same thing after Micah had died and she found herself in a cell again, with nothing but herself, even knowing all too well what had happened the last time she had made that wish.

_Come back make it stop make it stop please I don't want to feel this anymore make it stop come back_

But Jessica was gone, irrevocably, and Niki had found another way to make it stop. Of course, she had always known that Peter wasn't just looking for company and occasional comfort but for punishment as well. She just hadn't realized what for.

"Okay, as far as the secret service is concerned," Nathan said, "they have someone after the President who can impersonate him, is capable of becoming a human bomb if he wants to, and has a variety of other powers they only have a vague idea of. They'll keep his location secret and will keep changing it until they know for sure that threat is nullified, and they definitely won't leave him alone. Which means we not only need to find out where Sylar is but how to isolate him when he has every reason to avoid just that; otherwise, even if we succeed they'll just believe I'm the imposter and shoot me anyway."

"If he doesn't have the Haitian at his side, I can freeze time," Peter said, leaning forward. "Then it doesn't matter who is there. I put you in his place, kill him and teleport away with the body without anyone noticing."

Nathan frowned. At first, Niki assumed this was because this scenario still depended on a lot of "ifs", but then she wondered whether it wasn't because this version of Nathan Petrelli had not seen Peter kill before.

Niki had. She had used her own lethal skills at the same time, during that period when they thought fighting back would make a difference, before she realized that no matter what they did, things kept getting worse, and gave up on anything but her own and Peter's survival. It had been surprisingly easy to kill, and not because of half-remembered memories of Jessica; because every time, she remembered that if she hadn't failed Micah by hesitating before, he would be alive.

"That still leaves us with the problem of finding Sylar," Nathan said, and his voice sounded cool and distant, which was just as well. Right now, Niki could do without either the memories of those speeches on tv with their faked warmth sugarcoating dictatorial measures or the reminder that she really had wanted to sleep with him in Vegas and had only left because she knew it was a set-up, and would mean crossing an irrevocable line. Well, Jessica had taken care of that.

"There was a girl who could find anyone," she said. "Wasn't there?"

Peter nodded. "Molly Walker. I remember. Hiro brought her to Bennet." With a glance to Nathan, he explained: "Bennet has organized a railroad to get people to safety. New identities, fake blood tests, everything."

"I guess that makes Bennet our next destination," Nathan said. "Besides, wasn't the Haitian his partner? That could be useful if…"

"I think the Haitian is dead," Peter interrupted. "He was in the building when Sylar and I started to fight." His face grew still. "I – I don't think many people got out of there alive. I don't know how Parkman did."

Judging by his appearance on tv, refusing to say anything other than that the terrorist Sylar was still alive, and had not died in New York along with his victims, which was not exactly to the credit of Homeland Security, Matt Parkman was as good a survivor as ever.

"Sylar must have saved him," Niki said, refusing to indulge Peter in his brooding. "I guess he finds him useful. But there is one thing I don't understand. Why does he still bother? I mean, if he hadn't planned on stopping playing Nathan Petrelli, he wouldn't have flown on tv, right? And he couldn't have known another Nathan would turn up so he could blame it on him."

"I think he just can't stand people he killed coming back from the dead," Peter said sarcastically. "He tends to take that personally."

"Just as well," Nathan said. "He could simply have switched to whoever is next in line for the Presidency or gone underground. Which he still may, so time isn't a commodity we have."

He looked at Niki. "Speaking of going underground. Maybe you should stay here," he said. "It should be easy to disappear in Canada if you're by yourself."

She crossed her arms. "Oh no. The last time you told me someone would end up dead, you ended up making making a deal with him instead."

Peter looked surprised. She remembered how absurdly disappointed she had felt when she had realised that Linderman was still alive, telling herself how ridiculous it was to rely on someone she barely knew. It wasn't something she had ever mentioned to Peter, though; considering all that followed, it hadn't been worth mentioning.

"So I'm going to be around until either Sylar is dead and I get to tear him apart to make sure he stays that way, because someone clearly should, or until I see both of you die in the attempt. Frankly, either way it's a win-win scenario for me."

Nathan gave her a measuring look while Peter said "Niki…", then stopped. "A word," Nathan said, taking her arm as if to steer her in the next room. She didn't move. Super-strength came in handy that way.

"If you have anything to say, go ahead," she said acidly. "Sorry to disrupt the personal intimidation routine, but privacy is all relative if you're around someone who can read thoughts anyway."

Nathan's hand was still on her arm. Odd, the things you remembered about men. She remembered DL phasing through her – Jessica, she told herself, through Jessica – after he discovered the money, and how that had been the first time he had ever felt cold, not warm. She couldn't think of Peter without tasting the salt of her own tears, the first time he kissed her, her son's name unspoken on her lips, and the sense of betrayal was overwhelming right now. With Nathan, she had tried her best to keep Jessica's memories locked away, but she did recall his fingers working their way from her shoulder to her elbow, somewhere between stroking and teasing.

"This isn't a suicide mission," Nathan said coolly. "Getting us all killed is not an option, not as a default, not as anything. If you're even considering that, you're not coming."

He didn't have to point out that he had flight and Peter had teleportation, while Niki had nothing of the kind and thus had to rely on them for transport. Or perhaps he thought spelling it out would be superfluous; perhaps it was just that he was used to people following his lead. Either way, Niki recognized a power play when she saw one.

"Tell him I'm coming," she said, pointedly addressing Peter and ignoring Nathan despite still not having moved away from him, and added silently: _You owe this to me_. It didn't matter whether he was actually reading her thoughts right now or not; you didn't live with someone for years without being able to read them in every other way.

Years. Years and years and years in which he watched her burn every toy and essay and piece of clothing she had left of Micah's because she couldn't bear it anymore and had comforted her and told her not to forget with that soft, understanding voice of his.

She actually hoped he didn't read her thoughts, because the worst thing was that she _didn't_ want him dead, despite everything. She did, however, want to make a point, both to Peter and to Nathan.

Peter looked from one to the other, then made a step towards them. "This isn't a suicide mission," he said. "Or a competition. So cut it out, both of you. We're going to save the world."

With that, he extended a hand to each of them. Niki had barely time to notice the look of surprise on Nathan's face which probably was mirrored on her own. When she drew her next breath, they were all standing in an office room in Texas, and all hell broke loose.

* * *

During her time in what they had grandiosely called "the resistance" back then, Niki had visited the Primatech offices on a few occasions, so she recognized the surroundings. There wasn't much opportunity to reminisce or even to realize someone had turned them upside down very recently, let alone to notice such details as dried blood on the floor; the sound of a gun getting cocked behind you would do that to you. It was still as familiar as the feeling of pole bars clasped in her hands to Niki, and she reacted without thinking, whirling around and slamming full force against the origin of the noise. It wasn't until he was on the floor, unconscious with his broken jaw bleeding, that she recognized him. Matt Parkman.

"Doesn't make sense," Peter said, sounding appalled. "If Homeland Security stormed Primatech, what is he doing here alone?"

"Maybe he isn't," Nathan said. "Let's not wait to find out. But… we might need him. Can you transport four people, Peter?"

Peter looked doubtful.

"Okay," Nathan said. "Then take him and Niki first, then come back for me. To some place cops aren't likely to arrive in the next five minutes."

"You're the one who gets shot on sight," Niki said shortly, picking up Parkman's gun. "You go first."

She noticed Peter didn't protest this time. He disappeared with Nathan and Parkman, and she found herself examining the blood stains on the floor again. At least a day old. Maybe two, but not longer. She remembered the stench in the garage where Jessica had killed her former confederates. Then Peter was back, and offered his hand.

"Thank you," he said. She remained silent.

"For saving Nathan's life right now," he added, and Niki gave him a look.

"I did know what you meant," she said, and took what was offered.

* * *

As remote areas went, the Lousiana bayou had the disadvantage of moquitoes zoning in as soon as they detected new presences, not the slightest bit disturbed by people popping out of the air. On the other hand, it really wasn't likely someone was waiting in ambush here. They were, it turned out, in a hut to which the late Mr. Petrelli had once taken his sixteen-year-old younger son to in order to teach him to hunt alligators for a weekend. As the last of not many attempts to create some sort of bond with Peter, it had been a disaster from start to finish.

"I never was into hunting. Or alligators," Peter said to Niki, finishing tying Parkman to a chair, which was easier than holding him telekinetically all the time. "Plus I knew he only did it because Nathan had asked him to spend some time with me. But I did remember the hut."

Nathan was outside, presumably to look for possible intruders. Niki wasn't in the mood for talking about fathers, especially since she thought Peter had been lucky, considering Hal, but she let it pass.

"So now we've kidnapped the head of Homeland Security," she said, "what do we do with him?"

"Use him for information, first of all," Nathan said, coming in, "because I don't think your friend Bennet is still alive."

"Bennet is dead," Parkman said, not groaning but unable to suppress the pain in his voice when he came to. His eyes were fixed on Nathan. "And who the hell are you?"

"So you don't think he's Sylar," Niki commented. "Interesting, considering your public pronouncement yesterday."

Peter didn't say anything. He just stared at Parkman, who turned his head and said: "I've learned to keep people out in the last five years, you know. Far better than you," then looked at Nathan again.

"What else did you learn?" Peter asked, disgusted. "Stormtrooping?"

"I don't think you want to compare bodycounts, Petrelli. I really think you don't."

He couldn't know, Niki thought. Peter hadn't told anyone but her, and that had been not even two days ago. So Parkman was probably talking about Peter's days as a so-called terrorist. Still, she could see the accusation hitting its target, and it made her angry. She might have the right, but Matt Parkman certainly didn't.

"I," said Nathan, and there was a cold rage in his clipped voice she hadn't heard from him before, "am the duly elected President of this country. You, it appears, are the thug who allowed a coup d'état to happen and helped a serial killer hunt his victims. So tell me, how long exactly have you known who he was?"

For some reason, this made Parkman flinch where Peter's words had not. Maybe it was the former police officer in him; being accused of being a Storm Trooper was normal, killing in the name of the law was par the course, but God forbid he did something illegal, let alone something that could be described as going against the government.

Parkman licked his lips. "I – I didn't know until recently. I swear I didn't. Not until I saw him go through a wall, and then it was too late to do anything but follow orders and pretend I hadn't figured it out."

"You're a telepath," Peter said. "How could you _not_ know?"

"He's not _my_ brother, is he?" Parkman asked. "I got phone calls, not private audiences. Anyway, that still doesn't explain who you are," he continued, turning to Nathan. "I know you think you're Nathan Petrelli, but you can't be. Sylar killed him, I know that now. He remembers that very clearly."

"Maybe next time you torture time travellers, you could ask them to explain the whole time travel concept to you," Peter replied, expressionless. Nathan looked at him, and Peter added: "Hiro. Not me. He beat up Hiro when Hiro first came here."

"Did he," Nathan said, face frozen.

"Look," Parkman said, "let's say I believe you. There were two Nakamuras, I'll grant you that. So okay, maybe this is another Nathan Petrelli. That doesn't change anything, not really. Unless the country gets presented with Sylar's dead body pretty soon, they won't believe the impersonator story, either. Talk in the military is that Petrelli will have to step down as President, either way, because the suspicion will always remain. And you can bet that hush-hush project he had Mohinder Suresh working on will be greenlighted now that it's known specials can look like anyone they want to. That's the way they'll phrase it. Put them away for good or they'll be your wife or daughter next. And guess what, I don't want that, either. But it will happen. If people find out one of us governed them for years while pretending to be one of them, it won't matter whether it was a serial killer or some ADA from New York. It'll finish us for good. You know why I went back to Primatech? Because Bennet might have kept notes about where he hid my son, and I wanted to make sure nobody else could find them. That's all I care about. The rest –" He grimaced. The blood on his face left by Niki's punch had hardened to the point where it crumbled when he did that. "The world can go to hell," he ended wearily. "It already did."

"Obviously," Nathan said. "Which leaves me with just two questions. Do you know where Molly Walker is?"

Parkman looked down. "Yeah," he whispered. "In the ground. Bennet shot her right in front of me, back when everything started."

"He wouldn't have…" Peter began, and Parkman interrupted him.

"You didn't know Bennet. When Nakamura brought her to him, he said she was far too dangerous to fall into anyone's hands, government or resistance, and he shot her. I had some illusions before that, but not after, I can tell you that."

"We're not interested," Nathan said. "Use your cell phone and find out where Sylar is right now instead. Being head of Homeland Security must be worth something."

"Didn't you listen to what I just said? It doesn't matter whether you replace him or not. It'll all implode in a couple of days anyway!"

"Someone once told me the future is not written in stone," Nathan replied. "The more I see of this insanity, the more I find disbelieving her unthinkable. But you don't have to do it for the future, Parkman. Well, not the country's. Do it for yours."

He turned to Niki. "I think you said something about wanting to tear someone apart?"

She allowed a smile to curve her mouth, Jessica's smile, and remembered how easy it had been to throw this man out of the window. Then she thought of the men in the garage and for the first time did not try to block those memories out again. Instead, she let them fill her head as she looked at Matt Parkman. He didn't say anything, but his breath grew faster, and she knew he was reading her mind.

"I could use his cell phone," Peter said suddenly. "He must have the numbers memorized there. And Sylar changed right in front of me. Which means I have this power, too. I can be Parkman."

"You're bluffing," Parkman said, but his voice was shaken, and he kept looking at Niki. She wondered whether she could do it. Not a clean kill, not the destruction of a corpse, but torture. She also wondered whether Peter had his idea so she wouldn't have to, or because he didn't want to see his brother order it. It could be either, or both.

Or maybe he just had a truly useful idea.

Peter's eyes lost focus. Then the air shimmered. Niki blinked. At first, she could see Sylar taking shape, then Peter again, then the compact figure of Matt Parkman, with a faintly surprised expression on his face.

"It's not changing shape at all," Peter-as-Parkman said, wonderment in his voice. "More like turning invisible. You change what people see and hear, not… wait. Wait."

The air shimmered again, and suddenly, two Parkmans stood there. Then it was just Peter. Excitement danced in his eyes, and there was an enthusiasm about him that he had not shown in all the years Niki had known him.

"Did you see that?" he asked Nathan. "Did you see what I just did?"

Nathan smiled at him, and the amusement and affection in his voice were strangers as well, though she thought she once had seen echoes, in Vegas, when he had talked about his sons.

"Yeah, I saw," he said. As suddenly as it had come, the warmth was gone when he looked at Parkman again.

"I'll make the call," Parkman said sullenly.

"With a coded warning?" Nathan asked. "I don't think so."

Niki searched him for his cell phone, feeling him recoil from her hands as much as his tied-up state permitted him to, and retrieved it, handing it over to Peter who switched it on and looked at the entries with some disbelief.

"You actually have his number listed under POTUS?"

"Look, I'm not into fancy spelling," Parkman snapped. Niki stifled an urge to giggle and blamed it on hysteria produced by the awareness of impending death. When Peter dialled, she put her hand on Parkman's mouth, just to be on the safe side. Peter's imitation of Parkman's voice went without a glitch; his report of a discovery among Bennet's papers and the need to report said discovery in person seemed to be accepted, too. When he switched the phone off, Nathan said: "Better throw that into the swamp. If he didn't buy it, he'll tell someone to track you down via GPS. But you have the location?"

Peter nodded.

"Okay," Nathan said.

"Wait," Parkman said. "You're not going to leave me here with _her_, are you? Yes, you are."

"No, you aren't," Niki said to Nathan, furious. He stepped towards her, leaned in as if to kiss her and whispered in her ear:

"I'm sorry."

Then he said: "Peter?"

They were either invisible or had teleported by the time she whispered: "Son of a bitch." Parkman looked at her, fear and something else in his eyes.

"If it's any comfort," he said, "they're walking into a trap."


	3. Chapter 3

**III. Peter**

After the humidity of Lousiana, the air in New York was a cool relief. Out of habit, Peter looked around after they arrived. He came here once a year, every year; Hiro's visit and the events it set in motion had prevented him this time. These visits usually all followed the same pattern. He materialized on top of the Deveaux building, or among the ruins still waiting for reconstruction, and made himself remember every moment of that day. Then he left again. He never came more often than once a year, and there were places he never visited.

The one he transported himself and Nathan to from Louisiana was a case in point. He hadn't been sure it was still there, but then again, if it hadn't been, finding themselves up in the air wouldn't be a problem.

"That's several states out of Parkman's mind-reading range," Peter said, and let go of Nathan. It was what Nathan had asked him to do, a request buried in a myriad of convoluted thoughts which reminded Peter of the treasure hunts Nathan used to plan for him, several lifetimes ago. Briefly, he wondered whether he should feel guilty for trying to read as much of Nathan's thoughts as he could. He would have tried not to, in that other life. At least that was what he wanted to believe.

But that was before. Hiro must have felt like that, seeing Ando again, thought Peter, and watched Nathan take in their surroundings. They were on the rooftop of the building Peter had jumped from to prove he could fly, where he had made Nathan tell him the truth a day later.

"Good," Nathan said distractedly, looking around, and the sudden sharp pain coming from him made Peter flinch. He had forgotten that Nathan wasn't familiar with the rest of this; with New York rising from the ashes, with the utter devastation, endlessly replayed on tv, and shown again every time Congress passed a new law against their kind.

_When I killed Nathan, he had already turned against his own kind._

Sylar was a liar. Nobody knew Nathan the way Peter did. Nobody. And now he had him back.

"Is Ma still alive?" Nathan asked suddenly, still taking in the view. Peter shook his head, realized Nathan couldn't see him, said "no" out loud and was hit by a sudden image of their mother talking to Nathan in Nathan's office, the old campaign office, saying something about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, asking Nathan whether he could be the one they needed.

"Did Mom…"

"Doesn't matter now," Nathan interrupted him, turned away from the sight of the city and looked at Peter again. "Peter, they won't expect Parkman to show up for another hour, considering he'd have to take the helicopter to make his report. Which gives us some time. I need to talk with you about the plan. He was right, you know."

The increasing certainty he sensed from Nathan felt positive, not negative, so Peter didn't immediately protest, but waited.

"Of course we have to take out Sylar, but there is no way Nathan Petrelli will remain President now. Besides, I very much doubt that he currently looks like this-" Nathan gestured with vague distaste at his jacket and shirt, both of which showed every sign of having been worn for days now, and the subconscious vanity of it was so achingly familiar that it made Peter's chest feel tight – "so unless you can brainwash everyone who'll be in the room along with freezing time, they'll notice the switch immediately." Frowning, he added: "You can't, right?"

"No," Peter said. "The Haitian and I cancelled each other out. It was the one power I was never able to absorb."

He didn't miss the expression of relief in Nathan's eyes.

"It still scares you, doesn't it?" Peter asked quietly. "What we are. What we can do." He swallowed. "What I am."

Nathan stepped towards him and brushed hair that the wind had loosened from Peter's face. "You scare the hell out of me," he said. "You've done so since you first fell in a coma on me. The powers are just an added bonus. But I get it, Pete, I get why people are afraid, and that's why I know we'll have to approach this differently."

There was a lot Peter could have said in return. But he limited himself to asking.

"What do you have in mind?"

Nathan hesitated for a heartbeat. There was a sense of standing on a precipice from him, but no more than that. Then he said: "Take a look", and Peter did.

* * *

The current "safe and secure location" deemed fit for a President recently impersonated by a superpowered terrorist was a silo in Texas. Matt Parkman had to name several code words before being allowed to enter; having a combination of telepathy and illusion at your disposal was definitely helpful there, especially when one knew what the people in question expected to hear and see. So far, they were nervous, but they all believed they were seeing the head of Homeland Security arriving. He didn't sense Sylar yet, though. 

Just jumping in the middle of the compound and then searching for Sylar while invisible would have been possible, but invisibility didn't block infra red sensitive cameras. That was how most of their prison breakouts had fallen apart in the past. Following the guards, Peter kept scanning the compound and noticed that for all the jeeps outside, there weren't nearly as many soldiers or Secret Service men here as there should have been.

He held himself ready to jump at any moment. But he had to try a while longer. If Sylar _had _disappeared already, they would never find him again.

There it was, hovering at the edge of his consciousness; that presence. It was the first time he was actually looking forward to finding it. Sylar felt like a multitude of voices twisted into a single strand by force, and Peter wondered whether that was how his own psyche came across as well. He also wondered whether that was why Sylar had never killed Parkman; because it was one gift he didn't want, for a change. To know how other people saw you wasn't exactly a blessing, most of the time. Sylar had an image of himself, something glowing and splendid and far superior to anything else, with others as just the fuel he needed to keep glowing. He probably didn't care about seeing anything else.

In any case, he was here, and they were coming closer. Guards again, stepping aside after a few words from the guard guiding Peter, and then they had arrived. It was Nathan's shape that greeted him, again, still, and the hate in Peter was nearly overwhelming. It didn't matter that Nathan was alive now, miraculously recovered from the past and another time line; Sylar _had _killed him, and Claire, and only he knew how many others.

"Mr. President," he said in Parkman's voice, and stopped time.

The first thing he noticed was that the illusion of Nathan broke, but it didn't reveal Sylar. In fact, it didn't reveal anyone. The guards who had come in with Peter were real, but nothing else was; he was in a cell full of lead.

The second thing was that he could still sense Sylar's presence nearby. It was just impossible to discern individual thoughts.

"Peter Petrelli," Sylar's voice said, amplified by loudspeaker. "Always such a slow learner. And such a limited imagination. It's not shape-changing, understand? You can make people walk in circles forever, and they'd never notice. If you know how things work, and I do."

Peter tried to tune him out and focus on the thoughts. Not Sylar's, everyone else's. But the other people in the compound were too far away to read their thoughts, except for the guards with him, and they didn't think anything; time did not exist for them right now.

"I made a deal, Peter," Sylar said. "A deal with those wonderful people out there in the dark. You see, they were really interested in the story I had to tell. The story about two brothers with superpowers. One who committed mass murder, and the other who covered it up. Especially after Matt Parkman verified I was telling the truth. They knew they needed someone like me to capture someone like you, but I dare say they'd have offered a pardon anyway. Call me a state's witness for the coming trial of the century. Don't you love justice?"

He could expand the radius of the area he had frozen time in, but not without unfreezing it first, and not by much. The loudspeakers were everywhere in the compound, which was why he heard Sylar's voice; there were no soundwaves in the room he was in, where Peter was the only thing that moved.

"Of course you could just teleport out of here. But you're really interested in killing me, aren't you? Took you long enough. Still, I sympathize. Decisions, decisions. Me, I could have left for greener pastures, too, but no. Duty calls one last time, I guess. Want to know how you'll die, Peter? Let me tell you about the sad tales one hears these days. Why, there was one about a little girl who sucked the oxygen right out of her class room, killing every single person in it except for herself. That's the thing, of course. Our powers never harm ourselves. Still, she felt terribly guilty. Until I visited her, I suppose. Oxygen is such an essential thing. Even in zones where time is currently frozen. So, Peter, I guess this is it. For you and everyone else here not in possession of a gas mask. Unless you manage to find me first. Tag, you're – "

There was a strangled cry. Then Peter heard Niki's voice over the loudspeaker, hissing:

"Regenerate this!"

He found her thoughts, focused and jumped.

She had gone for the heart first, had plunged her fist into Sylar's chest and ripped it out, was still holding it, pumping, when Peter materialized. Sylar was on his knees, staring up at her in disbelief. The heart kept beating in Niki's hand. At another time, Peter would have thought about the implication for himself; whether this was what regeneration truly meant. Right now, he had other concerns. He didn't bother keeping up his Matt Parkman illusion any more, and as he let go of it, he revealed what else he had been hiding; the sword Hiro Nakamura had brought with him. Not the Hiro Peter had known and become friends with these last years; the Hiro of yesteryear, belonging to another world, whose sword had been taken by Matt Parkman while that Hiro had taken his future self's sword back to the past.

Peter didn't say anything. There were no clever words that could make this anything but what it was; a long delayed execution, performed by one killer for another. He pulled back his arm, swung and felt the impact as Hiro's sword hit and cut through Sylar's neck in one clean stroke.

The alarms didn't start ringing until Sylar's head hit the floor. Niki picked it up with her free hand, still not having let go of the heart. "I'm burning these myself," she said. "Now let's go."

He had found her in the midst of getting the truth out of Matt Parkman when he had teleported back to Lousiana after setting Nathan's part of the plan in motion. As furious as she was, she had agreed once he had explained. When entering the silo, he had used his illusions to cover her presence entirely. After making certain there were in fact no guards behind them, not many people there at all, she had fallen back and once outside of his shielding had started to search for Sylar. Once Sylar began to talk over the loud speakers from the central communications room, it had been easy to find him; he had to use the video monitors to watch Peter. He might have accounted for Peter possibly bringing Nathan along, but apparently, he had never thought of Niki.

"Let's," Peter said, feeling oddly hollow instead of relieved or triumphant, put his hand on her shoulder, and got them out of there.

* * *

_You once told me we could make a difference, remember?_

_I remember. _

_And I told you I was already trying to make a difference, the best way I know how. Sometimes you can make a difference with superpowers, Peter, I get that now. But not in a world where people have every reason to believe superpowers are there to harm them. More to the point, it's not what I really know, or what I'm good at. You know what I'm good at? Being a lawyer. Being a politician. And you know what a politician does when things are utterly and completely screwed up for him? He tries a spin. He makes a speech. _

When the President's press secretary demanded broadcast time on all channels, he got it. When the President arrived in the studio with only a small escort for reasons of security, this claim was accepted, even though the security people withdrew and, if anyone had been watching anyone else but the President, later dissolved into thin air.

The presidential speech started as expected; it wasn't that dissimilar from the one shown on national tv just two days earlier, before the speaker had shocked everyone by flying away: "My fellow Americans," "five years of sorrow", "five years of battle".

"At least this time, he can't fly anywhere," one of the camera crew whispered. They still didn't know what to make of the Sylar story. Then the man in front of the cameras continued:

"Five years ago, we started to change. Only some of us, we thought; and confronted with the terrible loss this change caused, we blamed them. We sought to contain; we hoped to win. In winning, we lost. My fellow Americans, we are one nation under God. That has been our pledge, that has been our goal. No more. Today, we are two nations, divided."

"He's not going to go liberal on us, is he?" the soundmixer commented. "Must mean he is one of them, after all. The ratings are going to go sky high."

There was some commotion outside of the studio, as if someone was trying to get in, but then it grew quiet again. As quiet, in fact, as if someone had wrapped the studio in a self-contained bubble of time.

"But not tomorrow. Tomorrow, we will be one nation again. There is a time for discretion, and there is a time for truth. And only the truth can set us free. My fellow citizens, these last years every one of you has been tested, as well you know; it was a sacrifice you made. The results that our scientists have discovered are so overwhelming that all my advisers, without exception, pressed me to suppress them, to hide them, to keep them from you. After today, they might attempt to continue this deception. But my duty is to you, to the people."

"Okay," said the cameraman. "This better be…" His co-worker glared at him and put his finger in front of his mouth.

"We all carry the gene that allows for change in us. Every single one of us. Yesterday, we struck against our brothers and sisters, trying to separate what should never have been divided; tomorrow, it will be ourselves. Some might live out their lives without experiencing this change; for others, it will come in the next hour. But come it will. We will be one again, and the choice will be ours; to be a nation tearing each other apart for what is in every single one of us, or a nation that tries to help, to heal the wounds we carry. I believe we still can. With our love, with our compassion, and with our strength, we can heal it."

There was complete silence. The President held it a moment longer, then he added:

"Today, I resign from the office of President of the United States. Tomorrow, I will be one of you again, with no more rights than any other citizen who has in him or her the potential to destroy and build alike. Here I stand. I can do no other."

The commotion outside started again; phones began ringing, as if they, too, had been blocked for the last thirty minutes, cut off from the outside world completely. A SWAT team stormed in, and while the cameras were transmitting, committed the unthinkable: arresting the President of the United States. He did not offer resistance. Instead, he followed them quietly, while the shocked silence inside the studio gave way to whispers, then murmurs and finally a cacophony of shouts. Nobody could quite believe what they had just seen, just heard, but there it was; transmitted for the country to see, for the entire world.

* * *

"That was unbelievable," Peter said after dropping the SWAT team illusion and transporting them to a trailer park in Kermit, Texas, which for some reason had been Nathan's idea for a hideout for the night. By now, Peter was starting to feel the exhaustion. He really did need a break. 

"You didn't get to hear my election speech," Nathan replied with a crooked smile. "I borrowed some material, but then I did have to come up with this one on short notice."

"Yeah, I noticed. 'Here I stand, I can do no other'? That's Martin Luther. Pater Ricardi would turn in his grave," Peter said, and realized that the hollowness inside was transforming its quality; it was starting to make him feel strangely light. "Also, you lied to all and sundry. Again. There wasn't any such discovery, but every denial issued by the government will just make people believe it more. They really will think they're all going to wake up with superpowers sooner or later. The gall. You really are a born politician."

"In other words, you're impressed?"

"Yes," Peter said, and hugged Nathan so tightly that some of the dried bits of blood and gore from beheading Sylar rubbed off and ruined what had been a new jacket hastily swiped from the Gramercy house. "Yes."

They were still holding each other when Niki came back from renting a trailer. Her hair still smelled of smoke; she had not been kidding about her intentions regarding Sylar's heart and head. They were both burned now, and she had flung the ashes into the wind.

"Sorry I missed your speech," she said to Nathan.

"Are you?" he asked back with one raised eyebrow, letting go of Peter. Niki shrugged.

"Not really. I'd have missed something if I hadn't personally cremated what was left of that freak."

"We're all freaks," Peter said seriously. "But he needed to go."

"Speaking of going," Nathan said, and Peter felt a shiver run down his spine. "What happened to Parkman?"

"I wanted to leave him to the alligators," Niki replied. "You have no idea what that man has been responsible for during the last years. But you know, I believed him when he talked about his son. Jessica – I killed people. I nearly wouldn't have had those last weeks with Micah because of that, but DL believed in that other part of me, and he gave me a chance. So. For what it's worth, Parkman is in an overcrowded Lousiana hospital."

She gave Peter the keys while telling Nathan, "I wouldn't have thought you'd even know what a trailer park is."

"It's good to know one can still surprise people," he said with an expressionless face, and Niki smiled, for the first time in a long while that Peter could recall. There was no bitterness in her smile, though there was some irony and sadness.

"Yes."

She stepped to Peter and kissed him, mouth warm and familiar in its mixture of sharp and sweet. His lower lip bled a little when she let him go.

"I'm done," she said. "Take care of yourself, and remember, if anyone kills you, it's still going to be me, so better stay alive."

Then she turned towards Nathan and kissed him as well; briefer and less intense, but it wasn't a short peck on the lips, either.

"And you, I guess, are still screwed," she continued. "But you know, I think you actually might have managed to make this world less fucked up today. I hope. So. Good luck."

With that, she left them behind and sauntered away, with the precise, elegant movements of a woman who spent a lifetime dancing.

"I know you don't go on the internet except for articles and polls," Peter said, voice a little husky, "so you probably don't know the expression. But I believe we've just been pwned."

* * *

He was up a little before sunrise the next morning, which wasn't difficult. There was a decision he had to make, and he spent most of the night thinking about it. Despite this, he felt oddly rested. The people in New York had still died because of him, five years ago; America was still a country in which people with the wrong genetic code could get locked up at a moment's notice. But he had hope, not as something hidden somewhere in the back of his mind and drowned in guilt but something that filled him, all of him, and made him look forward to the next day. 

"So," Nathan said; he was up as well, leaving the trailer they had rented behind him.

"You want to leave, don't you?" Peter asked. "You want to go back."

"Yes," Nathan said without hesitation, and the quickness of the reply stunned Peter until Nathan continued: "And I want you to go with me."

This was a possibility Peter had not even considered. He did now; he imagined living in the world he remembered. The world before. No, the world after, but different. A saved world.

"Nathan," he finally said, "I already exist in this world."

Nathan shrugged. "You told me yourself Hiro was here, and lived here at the same time. And that your Hiro was in the past as well."

Peter shook his head. "Briefly. And he was afraid that if he remained too long, he'd cause damage. As it is, I think he caused the different timelines we have. If I went back with you and stayed there, for good, it would be – well, a permanent paradox. Might cause another explosion. Or something else. The point is, I can't risk it, and I don't want to. I caused one apocalypse already, Nathan. That's more than enough."

Nathan looked at him, and Peter expected him to point out the obvious; if Peter's permanent stay in the past could cause damage, wouldn't Nathan's permanent stay in the future, especially a future not his own, do the same thing? But Nathan, who had been heading the debate team in school and used to wipe the ground with his opponents at court, didn't say anything of the sort.

"Okay," Nathan said. "Okay. Then I'll stay."

It was all he had ever wanted. That other Peter might have been saved from becoming death, the destroyer of worlds, by his brother; now Nathan had given Peter his life in another way.

There was, of course, only one way to respond. Peter had never managed to save the world, prophecies and predictions be damned. But he had saved Claire, only to lose her again, and he would save Nathan, now that he finally could.

"No," he said gently.

"Peter –"

"You'll go back," Peter said. "Back to your sons and Heidi. And your daughter. Who are all alive, and need you. And your life, Nathan, your own, not Candidate Petrelli's, or whatever Mom and Dad wanted you to be. And to your brother, because I know exactly how it feels to lose you, and trust me, you don't want to let another me who's found that out loose on the world."

He felt Nathan's hand on his shoulder, fingers digging in almost painfully. Peter didn't move. "But what about you?"

"I didn't lose you. I finally got you back."

They were silent together after that, watching the sun slowly appear on the horizon.

"Have you ever flown into a sunrise?" Peter suddenly asked, and Nathan shook his head, still silent.

"Then let's do that. Together," Peter said, and in reply, Nathan took his arm and rose with him to the sky.

Nobody else was up at this hour, which was just as well. They wouldn't have trusted their eyes anyway; two men, flying into the sun, becoming nothing but black points until they suddenly dissolved into thin air.

It was a beautiful morning.


End file.
